The only thing the West—now that they are on the offensive—can negotiate is his capitulation and the division of Russia into mini states .
Either he is playing 7D chess or is the worst war time leader in the recent past.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Either he is playing 7D chess or is the worst war time leader in the recent past.
Morning folks.
The Russians are reporting they have repaired the rail bridge. It seems awfully fast with the damage I thought I saw on the railway.
I would not want to be on that train.
The Russians are reporting they have repaired the rail bridge. It seems awfully fast with the damage I thought I saw on the railway.
I would not want to be on that train.
Quick comment on what is likely happened and what you're seeing here. Disclaimer to prevent internet experts from wasting everyone's time: I'm a licensed professional in the field of civil engineering and I will attempt here a professional assessment of the situation. I'm not 100% certain about it because we have fragmentary data so this is what I can tell from what I see and know about the situation. But from what I saw this explanation is most likely at the moment.
The element in the red rectangle in the bottom right looks like a mobile joint - called "expansion joint" in English - that allows the bridge elements to move under certain conditions. It is something that structural engineers developed to be able to design a bridge.
When you design a structural system you have to balance all forces and that is modeled through a system of equations with the same variables. A system of equations has solutions if there's more equations than variables. In structural design forces are variables. If all joints are rigid then the number of forces is greater than the number of equations that describe the system. An expansion joint which moves in one plane eliminates a minimum of two variables per joint. What you see on the picture is a joint that allows movement in two planes at once which eliminates four variables or more. Add torque that is no longer a problem for structural elements connected to the joint and there's many more variables that can be safely ignored.
Designers introduce expansion joints into the system and simply assume that the elements of the bridge will move within certain parameters. But that movement exists "within certain parameters" only as long as the other joints are rigid. The expansion joints allow for the creation of a rigid structure that allows for huge loads to cross it but at the same time the rigid joints are necessary to limit what acts on the expansion joint. As soon as other joints are destroyed the systems of forces which maintain the bridge in a state of static and dynamic equilibrium is no longer balanced. And as a result the bridge might move on its own simply because it will be out of that balance. If you have the structural model of the bridge you can pick specific points in the structure that when destroyed will release a much greater destructive potential simply because of the overturning of the static and dynamic equilibrium.
This is how controlled demolition is planned. This is why WTC towers 1, 2 and 7 collapsed on their own and within their own footprint and anyone who claims otherwise while claiming professional credentials should immediately lose them.
Destroying a bridge is really not a problem. In fact it is easier than destroying a building because a bridge is structurally complex but spatially simple while buildings are structurally simple but spatially complex. That means that once all the rigid elements are destroyed a bridge has nowhere to find support and collapses while a demolished building has plenty of elements to support itself. This is why you can use destroyed buildings for military operations but you can't do the same with a bridge that has a single span destroyed.
With a bridge all you need is the structural model to test and find the convenient weak-spot and the ability to put an explosive in the right place. You also don't need a large explosive in military terms. Bombs for destruction of bridges have large explosive loads because they hit with low accuracy and from above. In structural terms it makes them a truck with a very oversized load. By bombing a bridge span you are doing what the bridge is supposed to carry - except in excess. When you can place the explosive in such a way that the forces of the explosion act directly on the weak spot then you don't need much of that explosive because the bridge itself will do the work.
Every single bridge has this weakness because bridges are very expensive structures that require a lot of optimization. They're "buildings that fly" and putting mass in the air is very expensive. So nobody designs bridges that are too structurally resilient because it's like rocket science. Structural strength and survivability means mass and the more mass the more of everything - in geometrical terms - that is needed for the mass to be "up".
Personally I'm surprised it took Ukraine so long to blow it up. People who don't know structural engineering were thinking about all the wrong ways of doing it when the solution was obvious and relatively simple. I suppose it was all about controlling of escalation and maximizing of psychological effect because the human factors allowing for such attack were in place since June and possibly May. But now it has a greater impact because of the logistical condition of Russian forces in the South and this:
Green line indicates the only rail link from Melitopol to Kherson and the line of supply to southern front that can't be cut by a 30-50km assault on the Zaporozhia front. Red dots are Crimean Bridge, Novoaleksiyivka linking Crimea with Zaporozhia, railway junction in Novobohdanivka north of Melitopol, the dam in Nova Kakhovka and the junction in Snihurivka.
Currently Snihurivka is under attack if it's captured then Kherson is cut off from rail which means most logistics because Russia has no significant logistical capacity that is not rail-based. The railway bridge in Kherson is out of commission. With Crimean bridge disrupted and threatened with the attack Russia has to protect their main overland rail line through Zaporozhia which is probably the point - to force Russia to respond to Ukrainian initiative.
Earlier such attack would be only symbolic. Currently the logistical exhaustion of Russian force in the south makes it meaningful in those terms. It's a threat to the logistical artery of the Russian army and without logistics war is not possible.
Last edited:
As I said in may: Russians better use their nukes soon as possible, or they aren’t going anywhere , that applies to not only in their war towards Ukraine
No need to use nukes for now but they need to match AFU 1:1 and they will send them back to Lyiv. They've done well with a 1: 3 ratio and Ukrainian suicidal human wave attacks are beginning to overwhelm them.
Curioser and curioser.
No sign of blast from below it seems.
No sign of blast from below it seems.
Russia is not in a good position to bargain right now. If Russia was winning the war then there may have been some room for Russia to get concessions but as of now forget it. Russia is going to get alot less than it has now on the negotiation table with NATO and the West. But then again the fortunes might change on the battlefield. Or maybe if the economic pain for the West becomes too much.
PS who is "Patchwork" I have been seeing his name alot in these threads.
Patchwork was an allege PLA/Military analyst contractor or something in that realm whom worked for the US government or an MIC. He left after members repeatedly asked for confidential information about the f-22/f-35
Putin said that "Russia has not yet started anything seriously in Ukraine".
This Russian passivity can always escalate to Russian brutal aggressiveness. And I don't mean using nuclear weapons.
Or maybe I'm wrong and it's Russia's military capabilities ... Time will tell...
